Now I know my ABCs
by Omnicat
Summary: Snippets of Trowa's life before, during and after the series. He's a smart kid, but what place does learning have in the life of a mercenary, a mechanic, a gundam pilot?


**Title:** Now I know my ABCs

 **Author:** Omnicat

 **Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge:** The entire series and _Episode Zero_.

 **Warnings:** One wildly speculative point of characterisation. Feel free to disagree, I'm just throwing the idea out there.

 **Characters and Ships:** Trowa  & Catherine & Heero & Duo, plus assorted nameless mercs, mechanics, and circus people.

 **Summary:** Snippets of Trowa's life before, during and after the series. He's a smart kid, but what place does learning have in the life of a mercenary, a mechanic, a gundam pilot?

 **Author's Note:** Just a thought that came to me when I was desperately looking for an excuse to slack off all week bored one day and realized Trowa has probably never seen the inside of a classroom in his life.

 **II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

 **Now I know my ABCs**

"Hey, you."

The boy cramped up with surprise; he had been so absorbed in his business he hadn't heard the man approach. Now the older one was in a perfect position to snatch the book from the younger's hands and hold it up above his head, without ever having to take his elbow off the crate.

"So this is where Kurt's precious literature went."

This man was one of the friendlier mercenaries, who didn't use his boots for anything but walking in.

"The Captain didn't teach you your ABCs as an excuse for you to slack off, kid."

"I just wanted -"

"Later. You've got chores to finish, and Captain wants to show you the inside of a leg joint. Smart kid like you can do better with your brains than this pseudo-intellectual junk."

 **I-oOo-I**

"Here, I hope you're a quick reader."

An armful of manuals and an introductory guide to MS the size of a small encyclopedia were dumped into the boy's hands.

"Start with those and we'll see what use you can be to this team."

This guy clearly hadn't gotten the memo on why they'd hired the kid who had the Earthly accent and was so clearly years younger than he claimed to be.

"I learn better from watching people," he said.

"Do you now, little punk."

"Or I can just teach myself."

The supervisor told him off for cheek and put him to sorting bolts. The boy decided that he would give it a couple of days, and if the man hadn't wizened up by then would just pretend he'd read the things. Bluff was one of his specialties.

 **I-oOo-I**

There was nothing left in the trampled field but cars, trucks, and trailers, loaded with cages, equipment, provisions, people. The caravan was ready to depart, had been for at least an hour, but for some reason - beyond the usual chaos - they were still standing there.

'Trowa' made his way across the dusty lot to a truck with a crowd gathered around it. They were bent over the open hood three at a time, pointing and gesticulating wildly, arguing about who'd put "second-hand military junk" into the vehicle, calling for Lilly or Salsamille to come and have a look at it.

"Can I try?" asked 'Trowa'.

There was some laughter, but the crowd parted just enough for him to squeeze in. He took a look, tools changed hands, and ten minutes later the truck was ready for departure.

The ones who had laughed cheered the hardest.

The crowd dispersed, and the men and women whose vehicles were close to the one he shared with the knife thrower told her jokingly that her little pincushion was a boy genius. Animals, acrobatics, mechanics - was there anything he couldn't do?

She ruffled his hair from her place behind the wheel and spent the first hour of the trip playfully fishing for other hidden talents - can you cook, sing, write poetry, are you housebroken? 'Trowa' didn't answer much, but it was the first time since he'd joined the circus that he was in an honestly good mood.

 **I-oOo-I**

Suicidal Messy-Hair-Dark-Eyes had a doctor's handwriting: quick, sure, slanted, stylized. Utterly incomprehensible.

'Trowa' ran his thumb over each item on his list of relatives as Messy-Hair-Dark-Eyes went to knock on their doors and offer them his battle records and his gun. Just looking at the list of scribbles made 'Trowa' feel disoriented. He had long since memorized the entire list, but picking them out from the piece of paper was a challenge every time.

It wouldn't do to cross out the wrong name.

In comparison, his own hand of block letters - not quite as compact and solid as block letters ought to be - looked like that of a small child or someone so convinced of the superiority of electronics over traditional media that using a pen instead of a keyboard was a rarity.

Almost indistinguishably, Suicidal Messy-Hair-Dark-Eyes's eyebrows drew even further together as he examined his part of the shopping list. Trowa turned away and disappeared into the throngs of market-goers before he could say anything about it.

Not that he would. But Trowa left anyway.

 **I-oOo-I**

The absence of memories - he thinks it might not bother him as much if it was accompanied by an equal absence of feeling. You can't miss what you don't know, they say, and intellectually he sees the logic in that, but believing it - being able to - is a different story.

He can't remember a thing; even his own name sounds foreign to his ears. The only thing left in him is the sense that something is missing, and it almost feels more like it's his last remaining memory than a response to the loss of them.

Something's missing.

When he finds a magazine laying about, its light pattern of text instantly compels him to read it. Instinct rather than memory tells him he'd been able to read. But when he tries, it is like he's forgotten that as well.

 **I-oOo-I**

When he'd gotten his memories back he began reading more than he ever had. Battle was intensifying day by day, but the hours between the gundams's sorties were empty like never before. The Peacemillion crew took care of chores and maintenance for him, whereas with the mercenaries and the Bartons and the circus, he _was_ the crew.

He needed something to keep his mind off of things without wearing himself out unnecessarily, before he lost it. So pseudo-intellectual junk it was.

"Hey Trowa, you still got your nose buried in that thing?" Duo floated by, accompanied by a length of braid that seemed to have a mind of his own. "You must really like it to keep reading it over and over."

"Is something the matter?"

"Howard wants you to come look at the repairs on Heavyarms for a minute. Nothing serious. You'll be back with your book in no time."

"Okay," he said blandly.

He dog eared his progress; it hadn't been much today.

 **I-oOo-I**

"Come give me a hand, would you Trowa?"

Cathy was busy in the tiny caravan kitchen, sprinkled and covered liberally with ingredients of all kinds. Every available surface was occupied by tins, bowls, flower outlines, kitchen appliances. She was preparing a feast.

This did not bode well for the taste buds.

Trowa dutifully stood by her side, dodging a flower-covered elbow every now and then.

"Turn that page and tell me what the recipe says comes next. I don't want to get the pages dirty."

She nodded her chin to where the cook book lay on a far corner of the counter, out of reach of the explosions of foodstuffs. He took it, flipped the page, and scanned it with a frown. Clasping it between stiff fingers in such a way that the relevant passages would be clearly visible, he leaned against the counter next to Cathy and held the book up within her line of sight.

She turned curious, faintly amused eyes to him instead. "Well, tell me what it says."

"It's right in front of you, just see for yourself."

"I asked you to read it to me."

"What's the point, it says right there."

"Trowa, what's the matter with you?" She took her hands from her bowl of dough and faced him. "This isn't like you."

He stared impassively at her.

"Why won't you read it to me?"

He didn't answer, didn't move a muscle.

"You know how to read, so why don't you?"

There was a long moment of silence. Then suddenly Cathy's eyes widened, realization alighting in her eyes like someone had flipped a light switch in her head.

"You can't read," she said.

"I can read," he answered.

She looked him in the eye and her wrist nudged the arm with which he still clutched her cook book. A challenge. His mouth twitched bitterly, but he took it in both hands and lowered his eyes.

The words came slowly, haltingly, stumbling and awkward, syntax ruined as he tried and failed to string them into natural-sounding sentences.

Three lines in, his eyes flickered up to her face.

"Oh Trowa," She moved to hug him, remembered her sullied state, then cupped his cheeks. "You could have told me."

He looked away. "There's nothing to tell. I can read and write as well as I need to."

"But not as well as you _want_ to," she understood. Her thumbs smeared his cheeks with dough until his eyes returned to hers.

No, not as well as he wanted to.

"Silly. We can fix that. Manager's helped plenty of us with the same problem."

His eyes were cautious.

Cathy smiled tenderly. "You just wait and see. You'll just have to start with something simpler than that pseudo-intellectual junk you keep on the shelve."


End file.
